THE COUP

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REPORT FROM MOSCOW about the failed coup attempt against Mikhail Gorbachev. Describes the mechanics of the resistance against the coup. Writer interviews Col .Aleksandr Valerianovich Tsalko, who said that the failed coup in Moscow in August was the culmination of a period of imperial decline that began in 1979. Until that year, Tsalko never questioned Communism... Tells about the roots of the opposition to the coup, including the vote to make Boris Yeltsin chairman of the Supreme Soviet or parliament of the Russian Republic. In April of 1991, Tsalko became the deputy chairman of Yeltsin's embryonic defense military. Two months later he quit the Party & was subsequently elected President of the republic... Several weeks after the event, the failure of the coup leadership to arrest Yeltsin and the other Russian leaders remained inexplicable. Writer interviews Dmitri Rosnin, who tells about the initial stages of the coup. The defenders against the coup, who gathered in the Russian parliament building had not anticipated the coup, but neither did it completely surprise them. Mentions Echo Radio Moscow or Radio M, a semi-independent station which went on and off the air throughout the coup, and poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko who visited the parliament wehn it was being guarded by troops loyal to the republic & who read a poem at a rally there. Also mentions Moscow businessmen who contributed to the defense fund. Tells about Tsalko jumping on an armored personnel carrier and halting the advance of the column long enough to persuade its leader to switch sides. Tells about the subsequent collapse of the coup and the vote to loosen the ties of the republics to the central government.